"Racism in code" is lazy

This post springs out of a discussion on Facebook. A friend was praising Bob Schieffer's commentary calling Donald Trump a racist and I said the whole "racism in code" argument was lazy and suggests that the user is not interested in discussing the underlying issues. After getting some pushback, here is my response.

If you think Obama is the target of ridiculous, unimportant sideshows and laughable conspiracy theories only because he’s black, I need to only point you to these stories of the recent and distant past: 1) George W Bush and his cronies planted explosives in the World Trade Center and/or the Pentagon to destroy evidence of whatever, 2) Lewinsky-gate, 3) The Reagan campaign’s alleged plot to help Iran hold the hostages longer to ensure he won the 1980 election, 4) the Mafia helped John F Kennedy win the election, etc. I don’t think I need to go on. The fact is, all kinds of stuff will get thrown out there to discredit ANY president or anyone who threatens to become president. It has nothing to do with their ethnicity. It’s two things: the natural desire of the opposition to discredit their opponents, and an overwhelming sense in this country that those in power are devious, evil miscreants who can’t be trusted. We’ve also become a country that is more likely to believe the conspiracy theory first and assume the worst about people than to dig into the facts of the case before we come to a conclusion. That sucks and it’s stupid and we’re stupid. But it has nothing to do with race.

As for the college discussion, I know this is difficult for many on the left to wrap their minds around, but it is possible to decide that Affirmative Action is unfair and/or that it should be completely discontinued without being a racist. Yes, it is also possible to oppose Affirmative Action because you are a racist and yes Affirmative Action is about race. But noticing that African Americans (or Latinos, or American Indians) of lesser academic qualifications received admissions to major universities at the expense of white students does not make you a racist. That’s just a statement of fact. I’m sure any University admissions person of that era could confirm it for you. It was policy. Certainly any University student of that era (of which I am one) could confirm it. All you had to do on a UC campus of that era was to ask your new classmates what their SAT scores and their GPA’s were. And believe me, we all did. It was the main thing we had to talk about as Freshman after “where are you from?”

Share on Facebook